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Cass and Franklin’s work in this exhibition: The Beer Dress and The Sparkling Couture Dress

The Beer Dress

A dress made from the bacterial fermentation of beer – is fashioned from Nanollose’s plant-free cellulose. Instead of lifeless weaving machines producing the textile, living Acetobacter microbes ferment cotton-like natural fibers into a garment.

Pillars have been used throughout history to represent the strength and structure of civilization. The four pillars used as a backdrop for the Beer Dress photograph signify the change in civilization from a history of industrialization to a future of environmentalization. The three lifeless chimney stacks represent nearly 300 years of industrial transformation, from a tranquil agrarian world into a sprawling urbanized society. A solitary organic tree represents and defines civilization’s present day attempt to claw back a once environmentally friendlier world.

The Beer Dress is a symbol for the need to change, to save the planet. Let the battle begin, before all pillars fall!

The Sparkling Couture Dress

Made from the bacterial fermentation of sparkling wine, is fashioned from Nanollose’s plant-free cellulose.

The current global requirement for textile fibers is imposing a massive negative impact on the Earth’s environment. With the rapid reduction of the world’s arable land, fresh water and a finite supply of crude oil, present-day global production of natural and synthetic fibers are unsustainable. A new inexpensive, biodegradable and sustainable textile fiber is desperately required and we believe plant -free cellulose is that natural fiber.

Chemically similar to cotton, this plant-free cellulose is produced from a sustainable bio-process that utilizes the ability of Acetobacter xylinum, a non-hazardous bacterium, to produce nanocellulose fibers.

The Acetobacter bacteria simply convert a liquid solution into fibers that are harvested as a very dense, tightly packed non-woven material. The liquid solution used can include, but is not limit ed to, the waste products of beer, wine and champagne. The ability to utilize and value-add to a waste product of an existing manufacturing process, makes it more commercially attractive and environmentally friendlier.

The future of clothing has to be more eco-friendly; the planet can’t afford it not to be!